


Warning Sign

by corvidkohai



Series: Psychosis [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Ghosts, Hallucinations, M/M, Psychosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 05:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidkohai/pseuds/corvidkohai
Summary: Cloud's psychosis persists even after the events of Advent Children, which leave him wondering if the Zack he's begun seeing around is real or not.





	Warning Sign

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make a whole lot of sense unless you've read Spring and Wolves, the first work in this series

Cloud never expected his psychosis to stop. He had given up on that dream a long time ago, before the mako and Jenova and Sephiroth made everything worse and scrambled his head worse than it already was. There was no hope for it now, if there ever had been. He resolved to just do his best, the way he always had.

Things were different now than they had been, in the days of Shinra that were so fuzzy he could hardly remember them. The mako had eaten through the memories like moths through a curtain, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it anymore. He knew he had been close to both Zack Fair and Sephiroth, all those years ago. He knew he had confided in them, that he’d relied on them, that they had helped him with his psychosis well enough that the wolf had disappeared for a time. He knew that there was a crush on someone mixed up in there, but everything was so tangled up, he couldn’t be sure who the target was anymore. He knew that his feelings had been returned, and there had been a relationship of some kind.

The details were lost like everything else, but he had flashes of heat and pleasure that he knew he couldn’t have imagined. Cloud wasn’t exactly very experienced; there had been no time, after Shinra, and no one he was interested in. He’d thought about senseless, meaningless hook ups, but he couldn’t stomach the idea. Not with the way the average person looked at him like he hung the stars now, after Rufus had put out to the world the truth of just who had been responsible for stopping Meteor. He couldn’t take the credit himself without risking looking like it was the kind of publicity stunt Shinra used to pull, but he could give the credit to Cloud, and associate them together in the public’s eye. No, civilians were right out, and AVALANCHE was family, which made them unacceptable too.

This left Cloud celibate, with his hand for company, in the shower where he could scrape together what vaguely resembled privacy. He couldn’t even risk it on the road, not when the wolf wouldn’t leave him alone.

Because his first friend had certainly returned. It was largely Cloud’s fault; he refused to tell AVALANCHE about his illness. It wasn’t entirely their fault, but he had gotten so sick of the way they looked at him with distrust, like he was one step away from completely losing it, when Sephiroth had been around. It hadn’t been unjustified, and he knew that, but he also knew telling them would mean the return of those looks. He knew they would suspect it was Sephiroth again, and may not believe him if he told them this had been an issue before Sephiroth had ever been in the picture. If they _did_ believe him, they would give him the third degree for not telling them sooner. It was too late now, and besides, he could handle it.

That left the wolf shadowing his footsteps at all times, the way it used to when he was little. He got used to cramming to one side of his narrow mattress in Seventh Heaven to make room for them both, though it was a tight fit. He didn’t bother watching it dodge around people in crowds when he moved through Edge. Despite the fact that it would be impossible for a normal wolf, it kept pace with him while he was on Fenrir. Cloud fell easily back into the habit of having him around as if he had never left. It was as easy as breathing, to regulate his responses to the wolf depending on whether or not he was alone, what gestures people would overlook, the exact moment when he had to turn to it for help.

It wasn’t necessarily _good_, but he fell into a new sense of normal. He wasn’t even surprised when, after Meteorfall, Aeris made a few appearances. He thought, occasionally, that they might be real. Being taken to a never-ending field of flowers was certainly nothing that had ever happened before, and Aeris always seemed to have the exact sage advice he needed. But sometimes, his subconscious decided not to work against him, and he accepted that too. They were odd hallucinations, but he knew better than to really believe that they were real.

What he didn’t expect—and perhaps he should have—was for _Zack_ to make an appearance. Because his head was still so scrambled when it came to the First. He knew that one of his old friends, either Zack or Sephiroth, had been his partner, and one had been essentially his brother, and he wasn’t sure which was which. He _wanted_ his partner to have been Zack, because the thought of what Sephiroth did following the sweetness he faintly remembered hurt too much to even fully contemplate.

He hadn’t thought it was a pressing issue, but then he started seeing Zack more and more. Always in the distance, always out of reach. He’d give him a smile, a wave, a wildly improper salute. Once it had been a wink, another time a blown kiss and a laugh. No matter the gesture, Cloud’s heart slammed against his ribs, racing hard enough to outrun the sun, and his breath caught in his throat like skin on a thorn. He just couldn’t sort the _why_. He knew it was affection of some sort, but was it brotherly or romantic? The line kept growing more and more blurred the longer it happened.

But, slowly but surely, his hallucinatory-Zack was coming closer. Each appearance was a yard nearer, and that meant he had to figure it out soon. Because if Zack reached him before he knew how to answer him, he wasn’t sure what he would do, what would come out of his mouth, but he expected it would be all wrong.

So he sat with the wolf and tried to work it out, late at night when no one would hear him talking to himself.

“You don’t remember either?” Cloud asked, running his hands through the wolf’s fur absently.

“Kid, how many times do I have to tell you? I only know what you know.”

“No, I know. But you’re a part of my subconscious. Can’t you, I don’t know, get in contact with my memories better?”

“It’s not that I can’t get to your memories. It’s that your memories are rotten through, like old wood. The holes are too big for me to make sense of them, and what’s left is so fragile that it might crumble if I touch it.”

Cloud cursed, dropping his forehead into his palm.

“So there’s no sure way to find out.”

“Not that I know of, no. All you can do is try to reason it out.”

“Right,” Cloud mumbled, rubbing his brow. “Well, I knew Zack first, I’m pretty sure about that. I remember he used to touch me all the time—it was more like rough-housing than anything, but still. And it doesn’t really make sense to me, how Sephiroth could have done everything he did, if we had been together. Zack was always so open and personable, and Sephiroth was closed off. Zack—hell, there was the _cliff_, he clearly cared too much.”

“Alright, those are all reasons for Zack. What about for Sephiroth?”

Cloud paused, then furrowed his brow and scowled, dropping his hand.

“I don’t know? I mean, there was all the hero worship I had for him, but I know now how off-putting that is from the receiving end. He _was_ attractive; the one unanimous opinion in Shinra was that we would all agree to fuck him if he asked. But Zack was attractive too, so I think that’s a moot point. I just—there’s not a lot that points to Sephiroth. It doesn’t make any sense. Especially the gap in rank; he was the _General_, and I was a trooper. I know Zack was a First, which is still a big gap, but not as big.”

“Are you sure you don’t just _want_ it to be Zack?”

Cloud sighed and ruffled his hair.

“I mean, of _course_ I want it to be Zack. After everything he did _for _me—and everything Sephiroth did _to_ me—obviously I want it to be him.”

“So this might just be wishful thinking.”

“Maybe? There’s no way to tell. I mean, what harm would it do, if it was? The hallucination is my subconscious; it’s going to go with whatever I decide on. What’s the harm in a little fantasy?”

“Do you want it, if it isn’t actually real?”

Cloud scoffed outright.

“Since when has ‘real’ meant anything to me? Just because something isn’t objectively ‘real’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value, or that it’s not important. Sephiroth fucking with my head was real, but that was hell, and did nothing but hurt. All the advice Aeris has given me isn’t, but that’s helped so much.”

“That could have been real too; after what she did with Holy, is it impossible?”

“I guess not, but what are the odds? My point is, it doesn’t matter if it’s real. If I experience it, and it has meaning, that’s good enough for me. Maybe that’s self-indulgent, or me sticking my head in the sand, but if there’s no way to tell if something’s real or not, why fight it?”

The wolf sighed and rested its chin on its paws.

“So what’s your plan here? Start making out with Zack the second he’s close enough?”

Cloud coughed a laugh.

“_No_. Whatever happens, happens. I just—well, I can hope, can’t I?”

“You know you’re going to look dumb as hell, making out with empty air.”

“I look dumb as hell talking to you; when has that ever stopped me?”

The wolf huffed, but fell silent, conceding the point. Cloud rolled his eyes, but let that be the end of it.

So, as Zack grew closer and closer over the next few weeks, Cloud waited with growing anticipation. He didn’t imagine there would be making out, the way the wolf said. He could hope for soft touches and looks, maybe. Maybe a few sweet words. That would be more than enough for him. He thought that if he had one solid memory of Zack loving him, something firm to hold on to, it would soothe a lot of old aches.

He wasn’t expecting that when Zack was finally near enough to interact with, it would be in the empty Seventh Heaven late at night, when Cloud went downstairs for a glass of water. All the lights were out, his mako eyes being enough to see by, and everyone but him was sound asleep. He almost jumped when he felt arms settle around his shoulders, but then he calmed as the smell that was distinctly Zack filled his senses: citrus, cinnamon, and sword oil. 

“Hey,” he said, his voice so small it almost broke; he nearly didn’t say anything at all, because he was in the open, but it was late, and everyone was asleep in bed.

“Hey,” Zack said, his voice warm with amusement. “You aren’t going to freak out, right? I tried to give you a chance to get used to the idea of a ghost stopping by before I came kicking in your door.”

Cloud sighed, but leaned back in Zack’s hold, being almost effortlessly supported.

“You don’t have to give me the ghost bit, Zack. I know this is in my head.”

Zack hummed, but the sound was sad.

“I thought that might still be happening, but you never mentioned it to AVALANCHE. How come?”

“After everything with Sephiroth, it seemed like a bad idea. I didn’t want them to look at me like I lost it again.”

“You don’t know that they would. He and I never looked at you that way.”

Cloud shook his head.

“They’ve already looked at me that way, and that was when something real was happening. When it’s actually all in my head? There’s no chance.”

“You should try them. I remember when you used to rely on that wolf of yours all the time; it was never quite good enough.”

“I resent that,” the wolf said, and Cloud batted at its muzzle, but strangely enough, Zack didn’t seem to hear it. Which was odd, when they were both in his subconscious.

“I can get by,” Cloud deflected.

“Yeah, but that’s not really living. You used to know the difference, back in Shinra.”

Cloud laughed, but the sound came out hard.

“Yeah, well, I’ve forgotten most of Shinra, so it doesn’t matter.”

“How much is ‘most of?’”

“Enough that I can’t even tell how much is missing. But, again, I know that you’re in my head, so you don’t have to pretend not to know that.”

“Cloud, I’m really not. I swear, SOLDIER’s honor.”

That wasn’t something Zack swore on lightly, Cloud remembered that much. It made him inclined to believe him, but then again, his mind had played unfortunate tricks on him before.

“How could you possibly be here, really here?”

“Aeris gave me leave. She said you could use a friend, and if AVALANCHE doesn’t know about your hallucinations, then I can see why she sent me.”

It was plausible. As the wolf had said, after what she did with Holy, there was no telling just how far Aeris’s reach extended.

Still, Cloud shook his head.

“It can’t actually be you. This can’t be real.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, kid. It’s real.”

“Don’t call me ‘kid,’” Cloud said automatically, and old, ingrained call and response between them that he hadn’t even actively recalled until he said it.

Zack spun him in his arms and held him by the shoulders, a serious look on his beautiful face. Cloud’s heart stuttered, finally getting to see him up close again. Gaia, it really must have been him that he loved, wasn’t it?

“Believe what you have to, Cloud. But, whether you think this is advice from the dead or the back of your own head, trust me when I say you need to tell your friends. This won’t get better if you try to handle it alone. You always, _always_ did better with help. Reach out; I know you’ve forgotten a lot, but you can’t have forgotten how to do that.”

Cloud chuckled a little bitterly and said, “I might have.”

“Then get the wolf to hit you upside the head until your memory jogs.”

“But…”

“Listen, either this is your mind pleading with you to get some help, or Aeris sent me on a rescue mission because she knows you need it. Either way, you should take this for the big glaring warning sign that it is.”

“I don’t think—”

“Cloud? Who are you talking to?”

Cloud’s head whipped around to the staircase, easily recognizing Tifa’s voice calling down from the top step. What she said implied that she heard Zack too. Only that was impossible, because Zack wasn’t real. Right?

Cloud snapped his head back around to look at Zack, only to find him gone.

He paused for a long moment, and then sighed. The wolf nudged his hand with its wet nose.

“No one, Tifa. But, hey, how awake are you right now?”

“Pretty awake, since I just heard two adult men talking in an empty bar where there should only be one,” she said, and he could hear her padding down the stairs in her bare feet. When she got to the bottom and flicked on the lights, he turned to look at her, and watched her look around the bar in confusion. “I was sure I heard…”

If Tifa heard Zack, and he _was_ real, then listening to his advice was non-negotiable.

He took a deep, shaking breath and blew it out slowly, pushing his hair back out of his eyes.

“Listen, Tifa, I’ve got something to come clean about.”

Her eyes shot to him, worry contorting her face.

“Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like saying it any more than you’re going to want to hear it. Come on, you’re going to want to be sitting for this,” he said, heading toward one of the tables himself, taking down two chairs that were stacked on top of it.

“I _extra_ don’t like the sound of that,” she said, coming to sit across from him at the table. She waited a long while for him to finally say something, and when it became clear he wasn’t going to, she said, “Well?”

He ruffled his hair nervously and looked down at the table top. He drummed his fingers against the wood.

“You remember how, when I was a kid, I fell in that mako spring?”

“Of course I do. It was all the town talked about forever; no one thought you’d make it, but you came out just fine.”

Cloud winced, and her eyes narrowed in response.

“Not really. Not ‘just fine.’”

“What does _that_ mean?”

Cloud took a deep breath, and then launched into the tale. He stared down at his tapping fingers for the entirety of it. He told her about the wolf, about learning how to get his feet under him in Nibelheim, about how Zack and Sephiroth had helped him at Shinra (and didn’t it shock her, to know that Sephiroth had ever helped anyone). He told her about how the wolf had come back not long after he met her again in Midgar, after losing Zack. He told her about how he still wasn’t sure how much of Sephiroth in his head had been real and what had just been his mind playing cruel tricks. The only thing he left out was his maybe-relationship with Zack, and he certainly didn’t bring up that it might have actually been with Sephiroth.

He resolved to ask Zack for the truth next time he saw him, now that he knew he was real and would have actual answers, instead of just parroting back what Cloud wanted to hear.

Tifa had gathered him into her arms the second he was done and held him tight. She thanked him for his honesty and promised that he could come to her if he ever needed help, that this didn’t change anything, and that she would always be there for him.

The rest of AVALANCHE took it with varying levels of grace.

Vincent had nodded simply and began to relate stories of what it was like to live with his demons; he acknowledged that it wasn’t quite the same thing, but hearing voices no one else could was still an experience they shared.

Cid’s first reaction had been to shout, “Well, shit.” He’d then demanded a hard drink from Tifa, and asked Cloud to tell the story over again, but slower this time, so he could make sense of it. He admitted at the end that he didn’t really know what he could do to help, that none of this made a lick of godsdamn sense to him, but he’d help if he could.

Barret had looked awkward and just nodded. Cloud guessed it wasn’t a good sign, but he was certain about it when he overheard him asking Tifa if the kids were safe to be around Cloud, if he was like this (he routinely forgot how sensitive Cloud’s hearing was, but then, most of AVALANCHE did).

Tifa had hit him so hard her knuckles split and, as she shook out her hand, told him, “Don’t you ever let me hear you talking about him like that again.”

Nanaki had listened quietly and patiently. He said that it made a certain amount of sense; it wasn’t entirely unlike how the Cetra heard the Planet, and it had been mako that caused it. He asked Cloud for a rundown of coping mechanisms, of the different ways he might be able to help. He apologized that he wouldn’t be able to help from a distance unless Cait Sith was with him—he had no hands to hold a PHS with to accept a call—but promised to help any way he could if he was nearby. This wasn’t something someone should have to suffer alone.

Reeve had looked unsettled at first, and then settled on being awkward. He confessed that he didn’t have any idea how to help with this; he’d never met anyone with this problem before. The closest he’d come were the first round of SOLDIERs, when they had done the enhancement process without initially checking for mako sensitivity, and some people had bad reactions. But those people were more stories he had heard of, not anyone he had known well. He offered to be an ear whenever Cloud needed one, but moreover, he offered to do research for Cloud. He was certain there were methods for handling this, techniques for coping, and he’d always been good at research. Cloud had been surprised by the offer but accepted.

Yuffie, arguably, took it the worst. Barret was also in the running, but Yuffie didn’t have as good a filter as he did. Her expression had grown more disturbed as he went, and that made it much harder to get everything out.

“So you’re crazy?” she asked.

“_Yuffie_,” Tifa said from where she was behind the bar, warning in her tone.

Cloud held up a hand to her, still looking at Yuffie as he said, “Basically, yeah. I have been for as long as you’ve known me.”

Yuffie paused to consider this, then shrugged.

“Yeah, you’ve always been a little bonkers—I just figured it was Sephiroth, until now. Guess it doesn’t change much, huh?” She then reached over the table to pat Cloud’s arm and said, “We’ll keep you from going all the way off the deep end, same as we did before.”

Her relatively quick acceptance was why there was a strong argument that Barret had taken it worse, despite his initial politeness.

It took time to tell everyone, because this was really a conversation to have face-to-face, and it wasn’t quick to round them all up from the scattered corners of the globe. But he managed it eventually. It wasn’t even what was at the forefront of his mind, most of the time.

Mostly, he was wondering where the hell Zack had gone.

He hadn’t seen the man since that night Tifa interrupted them. He was burning to ask him the truth about the relationship he half remembered. He needed the truth, needed to know exactly how badly Sephiroth had betrayed him, needed to know if the feelings for Zack he now felt burning in his chest had ever been reciprocated.

But as more and more time passed, it became clear that Zack was not coming back.

And, despite the relative success he’d had with coming clean with AVALANCHE, that left him surprisingly bitter.

Even with AVALANCHE helping now, and the wolf no longer by his side constantly, it just didn’t seem worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> as in Springs and Wolves, the real relationship that happened when Cloud was at Shinra was with Sephiroth. He's just got some wires crossed with his memories and thinks it was with Zack.


End file.
